


Go Places

by rattlesnakes



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, pre-Raven Cycle
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-09 11:05:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4346144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rattlesnakes/pseuds/rattlesnakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because Noah used to ride around in different stupid cars, and there was a different boy, and it never actually mattered if they ever found anything to show for themselves. A pre-canon look at how Noah's shitty asparagus boyfriend became his shitty asparagus boyfriend, basically.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic in five years, but I cannot deal with how much I love Noah and so I had to write... something. He was just a boy once, after all. Any and all feedback is rolled upon for hours because it has been a very long time since I've done this.

Noah gave up on sleep - and, not coincidentally, the whole concept of camping out in a car - at six am. He’d already finished the can of Pringles they’d shared the night before, and the mysterious block of smearing, crumbling white cheese (found, with the Pringles, abandoned in a shopping bag in the back seat) was looking upsettingly appetizing; moving carefully, he deposited it next to his feet to reduce the temptation.  
  
He cataloged the pleasures of not sleeping overnight in a car: coffee, a coherent spine, warm toes, warm ears, cheese that remained a mystery to nothing and no one. The whole production had seemed like a good idea last night - calculatedly boyish fun, fuck curfew, not worth driving all the way back - but now, with a deeply painful crick in his neck and nothing to break the monotony of six am, Noah was definitely regretting the decision.  
  
_Regret_ was possibly the wrong word. _Decision_ was also questionable. He was _dubious about the situation_ , is what he was, but that seemed to come with the territory - things just seemed to happen, sometimes. Most of the time he approved of those things, at least in theory. He wiped away a patch of condensation on the windshield and tucked himself forward, trying to see into the field they’d parked in the middle of, but there was only the grey of pre-dawn light smeared like vaseline over rocks, grass, grass.  
  
With nothing better to do, he cataloged the (few) pleasures of having slept overnight in a car: feeling vaguely pleased with himself for being up before the dawn, no hideous alarm, the shared pack of Kools sitting between them. There was a pen next to the cigarettes, and he wrote _buy quieter clock_ on his wrist before switching the pen out for a smoke; a month in and he still couldn’t tell whether or not he actually liked smoking. He thought maybe he just liked having a reason to carry around the pack and set it between him and Whelk when necessary.  
  
“Jesus,” Whelk croaked from the passenger seat, and Noah felt his brain startle without his body bothering to respond. “Not with the windows up, you know the rules. Work with me here. Christ, it’s freezing. Isn’t it just _September_?”  
  
“I didn’t know you were awake,” Noah said slowly, testing out the viability of speaking when he was this tired. Verdict: chancy. All the vowels seemed to be happening without his consent. “Opening the windows won’t make it any less cold.”  
  
“Fuck. Point to you. I’m going to make you pay for this.”  
  
If Noah had still been holding the pen, he would have written _you wanted to camp out_ on his hand, but instead he just shrugged. It was hard to remember that he’d also wanted to do this the night before; he expected Whelk was rewriting history too.  
  
After a struggle to sit up straight that would have alarmed Noah if he had any energy left to be alarmed with, Whelk pinched the cigarette from Noah’s mouth, scattering ash over both their laps. “Don’t look so damn beatific. It’s disheartening.”  
  
“You’re disheartened?”  
  
“I might be. I’m fucking _sore_.”  
  
“Cross as a bear with a sore nose,” Noah said solemnly. “My aunt used to say that.”  
  
“My nose might be sore, but I wouldn’t be able to tell. I think it’s numb.”  
  
Noah surveyed the nose in question. It was pink with cold, but aside from the threat of an imminent breakout - Whelk would find a way to subdue it, he always did, Noah didn’t want to know where he bought his mysterious face washes - it wasn’t a _bad_ sort of nose. That was more or less the only thought Noah could entice forward; all the others skittered off, pleading exhaustion. As a nose it was a little bit too big for Whelk’s face, but most of the time that just looked like a trick of the light. Another thing that came with the territory.  
  
“I don’t think it’ll fall off. Hard to say for sure.” He rubbed his fingers against his thigh until they were warm with friction, then reached over and pressed them to Whelk’s nose, thumb tucked between his palm and Whelk’s cheekbone.  
  
It seemed like a reasonable thing to do, even when Whelk started laughing. “What the _fuck_ , Czerny.”  
  
Noah nudged his fingertips against Whelk’s cheek, feeling the muscles moving there with each wheezy morning-laugh. It reminded him of a Rip Van Winkle cartoon he’d seen as a kid, layers of crust and rime breaking away. “Making sure your nose doesn’t fall off. It’s warmer now, see?”  
  
“You’re so fucking weird sometimes. Jesus, what the fuck is _wrong_ with you,” Whelk said, but he didn’t push Noah’s hand away, and Noah felt himself smiling. Felt the way it made him weirder to smile - a growing sort of strangeness - and didn’t care, was too tired to care, and too pleased that the nose in question _did_ feel warmer. A success.  
  
“Probably,” Noah said, and let his hand drop. “Careful with the cigarette, you’re going to burn yourself.”  
  
“You’re the smoker, not me. This seat gets a hole in it, I’m telling them it’s _your_ fault when I get it reupholstered. Where the fuck do I put it out?”  
  
“I said you were going to burn _yourself_ , not the car.” He spat in his palm and held it out solicitously; Whelk laughed once, hoarse and barking - a strange sound, one Noah wouldn’t have connected to him if he had heard it in a crowd - then stubbed the butt out. It hissed warmly in Noah’s hand, and he curled his fingers around it.  
  
“You keep that safe now,” Whelk said, his attention already moving on to other things - heat, food, getting the fuck out of there before dawn caught them out.  
  
***  
  
The whole camping situation had started to seem like a better decision the moment they pulled out of the field, and by the time they were halfway back to Aglionby it had transformed entirely, turned into the Boy’s Own adventure it had been to start off with. (Or it had always been that, and it had just turned out that they weren’t Boy’s Own enough to enjoy it properly.) Noah liked watching the story change between them, liked the feeling of knowing he was bullshitting when he said they should do it again - it felt like they were turning it into an anecdote together, getting their facts right in case they were quizzed on it.  
  
He rubbed at the words on his wrist - _buy quieter_ \- and watched Whelk drive. The early light and exhaustion made it harder than usual to know when to talk, or when he should be silent; he rehearsed words against the back of his teeth so that he’d have them ready. _It’s a good thing we had this whale to sleep in. There was only one Jonah, though. I don’t even care if we find anything, you know._  
  
“We should do that again,” Whelk finally said again, drumming his fingers against the wheel like a very small round of applause at his own suggestion. “Properly, though. Tents, provisions, the whole - we could even have a nice time of it, you know. Fewer Pringles, more -”  
  
“Cheese. We had cheese.”  
  
“Well, yes, cheese. But not _that_ cheese. Better cheese. Later, though - I’ve gone right off cheese for now, I think.”  
  
Noah caught his own reflection in the rear-view mirror and mouthed _better cheese_ at it so that he wouldn’t laugh. Whelk didn’t notice. “What good will camping out do?”  
  
Whelk blinked thoughtfully, slow enough that he drove for whole seconds with his eyes closed - Noah considered being worried, but the road was straight and smooth and empty. “Well, we don’t know, do we? Maybe it will make a difference, being out in the woods like that. Honestly, I mean, not inside the car. Besides, the rest will think we’ve been somewhere exciting.”  
  
“Not if they see us with our tent and - and handfuls of cheese.”  
  
“They don’t have to see those things. We can pick up the provisions on the way out and - _honestly_ ,” he said, spreading his fingers out against the wheel like he could loop the word around them, a cat’s cradle. “Don’t you trust that I can keep all of this hidden?”  
  
Noah hesitated, then shrugged his right shoulder, the one Whelk couldn’t see. “The cheese stands alone, I get it.”  
  
“Stop that right _now_ , or I’ll never be able to eat the stuff again.”  
  
“Heaven forbid,” Noah said, but he fell silent and leaned his cheek against the window. Eventually they’d pull in somewhere to eat, hopefully before they reached Henrietta proper, so that was okay. 


	2. Chapter 2

Noah sat cross-legged in his bed and read his map.  
  
Sometimes this entire exercise - the ley lines, the dowsing rods, the pointless New Age books they’d actually roasted marshmallows over one night in an incendiary fit of disgust - just felt like a way for him to account for his time. Not when they were actually out there looking, but here; he liked knowing that this was something he did, liked knowing that when Whelk looked up from his laptop he’d expect to see Noah making notations, and there Noah would be, making notations. It wasn’t quite an identity, and he wasn’t totally sure he wanted one of those anyway, but it gave him an obscure sort of pleasure anyway.  
  
Noah made a notation, then hesitated. Whelk was still staring intently down at his screen, but he could feel the interruption approaching. Something subaudible, like knowing when a TV is on even when it’s muted, something like that -  
  
“This guy thinks that radio towers are pulling things out of alignment, maybe. Might explain why the lines aren’t where they should be.”  
  
Even though he couldn’t hear one, he was pretty sure there was supposed to be a question mark at the end of that sentence. “We don’t know where things should be.”  
  
“We have calculations -”  
  
“Oh,” Noah said. “The _calculations_.” It was an experiment, tilting his voice like that, and surprise felt like something fizzy and welcome in his throat when Whelk actually shut his laptop and looked over at him.  
  
“The calculations work, most of the time. We’re just missing some variables. No big deal, we’ll get those eventually.”  
  
“The calculations _do nothing_. We both suck at math.” He stared down at the map and smoothed his hand over it affectionately. No matter how many times he tried to fold it properly, it still insisted on creasing in new and exciting places. “Radio towers can’t seriously be the answer.”  
  
Whelk came over to sit on the edge of Noah’s bed, tucking his knee beneath Noah’s so that he could lean in over the map. Who the hell knew what he was looking at, or for; he was awful at both maps and deciphering Noah’s scrawl, so probably it was just for effect. Noah didn’t mind - it was like being seen making his notes. Something to show for himself.  
  
“I don’t really think they can be _the_ answer, but they might be _one_ answer. Say they have… some effect. Nothing big, but when it’s this precise, that might be enough. You remember that graveyard? I still think there should have been something there, but it might have just been over the next fence or something. Just far enough.”  
  
 _Cartography_ , Noah thought. _Khartēs_ ; he was no good at Greek either, but he’d memorized that one. Rote memorization didn’t mean much in the long run, but it made him feel good sometimes to have something to turn over in his mind even when he felt like he didn’t have much to add. Like his thoughts could be the back-up vocals, or maybe a rhyme. “There wasn’t ever going to be anything there, it was just creepy. You’re impressed by how things look.”  
  
“Stop projecting and focus, Czerny. Do I know any of the Japanese boys? Maybe I should hire one of them to work on the calculations, I wouldn’t have to say what they were for.”  
  
No question mark in sight, spoken or otherwise.  
  
“Something to think about, anyway,” Whelk said. With the laptop closed, the only illumination was Noah’s lamp; Whelk was in the way, but some of it still hit the map, a slash of light - the whole affair would be much easier if the ley lines actually looked like that. The dark made the room feel tired and autumnal, dark-paneled, familiar, more like the kind of school Noah’s parents thought they’d sent him to.  
  
It was possible that Aglionby _was_ that kind of school, and Noah just hadn’t noticed until now.  
  
If anyone wanted to find either of them, they’d know where to look. Noah liked that too.  
  
“ _I’m_ thinking about popcorn,” Noah finally said, once the silence had stretched out long enough to make him feel like it was his job to fill it with something. “Popcorn, and maybe a movie.”  
  
“Simple enough pleasures, I suppose. I don’t know how you can stand to watch anything with those speakers of yours - you can buy better ones, you know. The technology is available.”  
  
Noah didn’t say anything, but he looked pointedly over at Whelk’s side of the room. Despite all of their extracurricular expeditions being Whelk’s idea in the first place, somehow all the related paraphernalia had come to roost around Noah’s bed and Noah’s shelves. Whelk’s space, on the other hand, was mysteriously devoid of abandoned attempts at building a better dowsing rod. What it did have was a sound system of the gods.  
  
“Don’t,” Whelk said, casually pushing Noah’s map off to one side so that he could sprawl out. His shoulder pushed up against Noah’s, but neither of them moved, and Noah looked up at the ceiling. “I won’t subject it to the kind of shit you watch.”  
  
“There’s that documentary I found,” Noah hazarded. “It arrived the other day. Like, I don’t have to watch Jackass again. It could be research, just with popcorn.”  
  
Even staring at the ceiling, Noah could feel Whelk watching him. He forced himself not to move, though he wasn’t sure why. It just seemed like the thing to do.  
  
“Well, that’s a possibility,” Whelk said, and Noah’s shoulders relaxed.  
  
“The DVD’s in my bag, I’ll go make the popcorn,” Noah said. He eyed his map, shoved unceremoniously up against the wall, then scooted off his bed. He’d fold it up later, when Whelk wasn’t around to make fun of his map-wrangling skills.  
  
“White cheddar popcorn,” Whelk called after him. “Remember that.”  
  
The kitchen was usually deserted - nobody actually bothered to cook anything, and anyone with a shameful ramen habit usually kept a kettle or a microwave in their own room - but tonight it was occupied by two boys whose names Noah couldn’t remember. Something basic, easy. Smith, maybe. Maybe they were both Smith. At least his and Whelk’s were memorable, and Whelk somehow managed to give the public impression that he _liked_ his. He was such a bullshitter.  
  
Smith One was sitting on the countertop, next to the microwave. “Decided not to be antisocial tonight then, Czerny?”  
  
“Not hanging out with you doesn’t make me antisocial,” Noah said. “Lighting the kitchen on fire would be antisocial.”  
  
Smith Two made a thoughtful noise. “Funny, though.”  
  
“Maybe,” Smith One said. He was shorter and rounder than Smith Two, and Noah recognized him by sight, at least. Smith Two could have been any of the boys he happened to share a school with. “I don’t care what you do with your time, but you’re corrupting Whelk. He hasn’t showed up _any_ where lately.”  
  
“I’ll tell him he’s missed.” Noah was just glad that Grant wasn’t around; the guy had a weirdly intense problem with the smell of microwaved popcorn. He could deal with these Smiths, though.  
  
“Do I have to leave a calling card? Does he have hours? Are you his secretary?” Smith One leaned forward, obscuring the green clock on the microwave.  
  
“Nope. Just his friend. Roommate. Whatever.”  
  
Smith Two, clearly someone with personal space issues, plucked disparagingly at the shoulder of Noah’s t-shirt. “Not quite up to code, this, is it?” Noah could feel his shoulder twitch under the fabric, like Smith Two had missed his real calling in life to be a bee, or a fly.  
  
“You’re going to turn him into a recluse,” Smith One added, words blurring over Smith Two’s, blurring over the microwave timer.  
  
“Impossible,” Noah said.  
  
“Whatever. I’m going to be hurt if neither of you shows up to the party this Friday, though. It’s not mine, but consider this a personal invitation anyway.”  
  
“I’ll see if we can fit it in. Excuse me, my popcorn’s finished.”  
  
If Whelk could be counted on for one thing, it was comfort, and by the time Noah made it back to their room he had already set it up for documentary-viewing in style. Noah still didn’t know how he’d managed to find a couch that fit their room; he guessed he’d probably had it made, but that didn’t explain it being leather and tweed. Noah didn’t want to reconcile the guy he knew with someone who would actually want a tweed couch.  
  
“We’re invited to a party on Friday,” Noah said, handing over the popcorn - white cheddar, he’d remembered - so that he could flop down. In the process he managed to dislodge both back support cushions, and he pretended not to see Whelk’s wince. “Don’t know who, don’t know where. Apparently I’m turning you into a recluse.”  
  
Whelk handed back the popcorn and rearranged the cushions to his advantage. Fussy fucker. “I’m not a recluse,” he complained. “I’m a brave and handsome explorer, and I won’t have anyone say differently. I guess I should probably make an appearance, though. It has been a while.”  
  
 _Brave and handsome_ , Noah thought. There was something there that didn’t match, but he couldn’t tell what - his thoughts about Whelk weren’t written on carbon paper, or if they were, it was just a mess of grey scratches that occasionally formed words if you blurred your eyes. Noah didn’t know that he would actually protest either label, so maybe it was just hearing the two of them together; he felt embarrassed, but he couldn’t tell whether it was for Whelk or himself, so he just shrugged. “We can go if you want to.”  
  
“You’re only allowed to come with if you don’t sabotage the music, Czerny. I might have to make you promise.”  
  
Noah grinned down at the popcorn. “That might not have been me, you don’t know.”  
  
“It _was_ you, and you’re still on probation.”  
  
“What if I dyed my hair?  
  
Once again he held still while Whelk stared at him - sized him up, made a judgment call, whatever. “No, no, don’t do anything like that,” he said, finally. Noah flicked a piece of popcorn out of the bowl. “You’re enough of a handful as it is.”  
  
Whatever Noah had been going to say stayed quiet in his mouth. He could dye his hair later, let Whelk deal with it then. He liked being a handful. He wanted to let that hang in the air, uninterrupted by any argument.  
  
***  
  
The documentary was, inevitably, a disaster. Bonfire-worthy, even though Noah wasn’t sure if DVDs burned. The one upside had been the talking head named Joseph Barry; Noah had whisper-chanted _Barry, Barry, Barry_ every time he appeared on screen until he’d grown tired of Whelk’s furious silence. Him being so easy to wind up took all the fun out of it.  
  
In the silence that followed the last of the pathetic credits, Noah could hear the tinny sound of music. He must have left his music playing, but he couldn’t remember when he’d taken off his headphones. Some point during the mapping process, probably.  
  
“I don’t know why we even bother anymore,” Whelk finally said, staring at the screen as though it had personally wounded him. Maybe it had, between Joseph Barry and all the comparisons to chakras. New Age shit always made him angry, while Noah just found it funny.  
  
“Eighty percent of what we’ve got has been from New Age bullshit,” Noah reminded him, not moving for the DVD player yet. “We just have to pick through the trash.”  
  
Whelk snorted, a raw noise, one he rarely let himself make. “I didn’t mean that, I meant letting you pick the entertainment. It never works out, I should have known better.”  
  
Noah rubbed at his mouth to disguise a smile. “ _Radio towers_.”  
  
“That’s not entertainment, that’s research. Maybe misguided, but it’s better than - jesus, Czerny, stop _laughing_.” Whelk’s voice was pinched and frustrated, so Noah covered his mouth completely. “Whatever. It’s all fuel for the fire, I guess. If we manage to find something, we’ll be the guys who actually found something in this pile of trash.”  
  
“Pile of trash,” Noah repeated. His shirt was hitched up behind his back. The tweed made him itch. “We’re seriously going to this stupid party?”  
  
It wasn’t like being seen at parties was important; they didn’t live in an Archie comic. Noah sometimes recognized that Whelk went to a different school than he did - Noah’s parents just happened to be rich, Whelk was something else entirely - but it all just seemed so pointless.  
  
He didn’t mind parties, but the two of them could have a better time with a case of beer and the sound system in his car. Aglionby parties, historically, sucked balls, and he always felt shitty when they crashed anything local.  
  
“Think of it as the cost of doing business,” Whelk said. “I’ll call Melissa. Weren’t you seeing her friend? What was her name - Christine?”  
  
“Yes,” Noah said, slowly. “I saw her. With my eyes.”  
  
“Well, whatever. It’ll be good, I should drop Melissa a few crumbs anyway, I can’t be bothered to find someone else right now.”  
  
The DVD player switched to a bouncing logo, abruptly turning their room aquarium-blue. Noah lifted his hand and watched the light forming shadows across his palm. Whelk looked at home beside him, and Noah cycled through options: _merman, shark, parrotfish, angler fish_. None of them seemed to fit. Barracuda, maybe. At least that would be funny. “What happens if I don’t go?”  
  
“Oh, you’ll be there,” Whelk said. He didn’t look over, but there was enough amused affection in his voice that Noah looked away resolutely.  
  
Most of the time he had some idea of why this had become his life, some sense of why he didn’t mind Whelk calling a lot of the shots. The shape of it rarely became uncomfortable until Whelk went and sounded like that - certain and condescending, and fond, like Noah was something reliable.  
  
He covered his mouth again, thumb pressed in hard against the twitching corner to hold it still. It wasn’t fair for Whelk to know him like that when even he wasn’t sure.  
  
“Fuck you, fine,” he said, muffled, and kicked blindly at Whelk’s ankle. “Dick.”  
  
“Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed.”  
  
 _Your couch is so ugly_ , Noah thought. _I’m going to dye my hair black, and your couch is so, so ugly._


	3. Chapter 3

Noah didn’t dye his hair, and he did show up at the party.  
  
As much as he resented it, both of those things were probably inevitable. The party itself was somewhere in the scrub, not quite dust and not quite forest. Somewhere that didn’t matter, anyway, since Noah and Whelk had never bothered with it. He was impressed with the sound system despite himself - it drowned out even his own stereo, barely letting his music get a word in edgewise. _Some -- say we -- made -- sharpest things -- say_.  
  
Whatever. There was a fifth of whiskey in the back seat and the _potential_ for this night not to suck.  
  
Busy considering his options, Noah startled hard when someone - Whelk, fucker, _fucker_ \- banged both fists on the passenger window. He was backlit by bonfire and headlights, but Noah could see Melissa behind him, so he rolled down the window instead of revving the engine and getting into a game of chicken.  
  
“Good to see you,” Whelk said, leaning halfway in through the window. For a second Noah was afraid he was going to try to shake his hand or something, but he just punched Noah’s shoulder and turned the key. Noah’s music died abruptly. “Get the fuck out here, Czerny. You’ll insult our hosts.”  
  
“You don’t even know who our hosts _are_ ,” Noah said, but Whelk was already slithering back out the window. It looked kind of sick, reminded Noah of watching snakes eat rats on the Discovery Channel.  
  
Maybe if he knew who the hosts were, he’d _want_ to insult them.  
  
By the time Noah made it out of the car, whiskey bottle clenched in one hand, Whelk and Melissa - redheaded, sweetly pointless - had disappeared into the party itself. There was the usual ragged border of hastily parked cars to thread through, then a throng of people in the blotchy glow of the bonfire. Noah could smell something sweet and familiar, and he vaguely remembered that some guys had been planning some kind of… hay-ride limo party. This was probably the aftermath.  
  
Any excuse, he guessed. At least it being fall meant that nobody would be trucking in any sand - he still couldn’t think about that party without feeling vaguely like maybe an asteroid hitting the earth would be an awesome thing.  
  
He found Whelk close to the fire. The music was probably connected to one of the cars, since it wasn’t as loud here, but he still had to grab Whelk’s shoulder and shake it before he even noticed him.  
  
“Jesus, you nearly spilled my drink. Your drink. Here -” Whelk said, and thrust a red cup into Noah’s hand. “I’ve got my own supply, and this is disgusting.”  
  
Noah sniffed the drink thoughtfully - beer. He had his own supply too, but he wasn’t going to turn it down. “It matches my car,” he said, pointing at the cup with his little finger, then downed it as quickly as possible.  
  
When he looked back up, Whelk was laughing at him, but he just shrugged and tossed the cup into the fire. It was too big for him to be able to smell the melting plastic, but he thought he maybe could anyway. Melissa was dancing with some other girl on what was probably the closest equivalent to a dance floor the party had: a blue tarp, still half-covered in straw.  
  
“Our school is so weird,” Noah said, leaning in closer to be heard over a sudden girl-shriek from over by the cars.  
  
“Our hobby is magical energy lines,” Whelk pointed out with uncharacteristic generosity. “I don’t think we have much room to talk.”  
  
Noah shrugged. “At least that doesn’t involve _hay_.”  
  
“Fair point. Isn’t your girlfriend coming? Christine, right?”  
  
Sometimes Noah really didn’t know if Whelk ever remembered anything. If it wasn’t for their hobby and Whelk’s encyclopedic knowledge of student names, he’d be worried about brain damage or early-onset dementia. It wasn’t like it mattered, though. “Nope. You know where I can get some mixers?”  
  
Whelk punched Noah’s shoulder again, a hearty pantomime of… male bonding, or some shit like that. Noah kept staring at him. “Drink it straight, Czerny. Be a man.”  
  
“I’d rather have Pepsi than masculinity, thanks,” Noah said. He saluted Whelk with the whiskey bottle, then wandered off in search of either soda or at least some empty solo cups. He was more than willing to just drink out of the bottle, which always made him feel badass in an embarrassing sort of way, but that was better saved for when he was sulking in his car later. He knew himself well enough, at least.  
  
***  
  
The kegs turned out to be at a table by the cars, but the cups themselves were scattered on the ground, and the dim light made it impossible to tell which of them had been knocked over and which of them had been abandoned. Besides that, any mixers had long ago been demolished, and Whelk hadn’t even been by the fire when Noah had gone looking for him again.  
  
He hadn’t _actually_ meant to spend the whole fucking party in his car, but what was he going to do? “Badass psychic,” he told his rearview mirror, toasting it with his whiskey before taking a determined swallow. He hardly coughed at all, and chalked that up as a success.    
  
One day he’d know what to do with himself when other people weren’t around. He liked being alone, but in places like this, things were different. It was easier to start feeling like someone just watching a movie, torpid and unseen. Going back to the dorms was a worse idea, though; eventually Whelk would stumble in, pissed that Noah had disappeared, contemptuous, drunk. Not worth it - Whelk was fucking boring when he was drunk.  
  
He wondered how Henrietta wasn’t the car crash capital of Virginia, with this many underage drunk drivers speeding home after every party. Underage drunk _boys_ , and personal experience indicated that was even worse.  
  
At least someone had turned the music down. It was marginal, but it meant Noah actually had something to do while he waited for the party to end. His CDs were an eternal spill over the back seat and the floor, slowly flooding underneath his seat and getting broken every time he tried to adjust it. In theory he had a list of which ones he needed to buy again, but in practice he assumed one was broken every time he couldn’t find it, which meant that at least a quarter of the flood was duplicates.  
  
_Antediluvian_ \- he knew that one. He wasn’t a bad student, just a bored one.  
  
By the time he’d listened through most of _Relationship of Command_ , he was well on his way to being comprehensively drunk, well enough that he thought he’d probably have to sit around and wait to sober up before he drove back to the school.  
  
The music nearly drowned out the sound of Whelk banging on his window again, but this time Noah didn’t even flinch - insobriety or deja vu, it didn’t really matter, he just unlocked the door.  
  
Whelk turned the music off, already talking over Noah’s faint noise of protest.  
  
“You haven’t seen her, right?”  
  
Noah stared at him drowsily. With his own music gone, the sounds of the party echoed through his car. It was a muddy, stoned noise. “Christine?”  
  
“Melissa.” Even though he’d obviously already done his drinking for the night, Whelk still helped himself to Noah’s whiskey. “Jesus, get your cigarettes out. It’s a waste to smoke them except when you’re drinking, you’re missing the whole point.”  
  
At one point Noah would have been hurt that Whelk only bothered to come find him when his date was unavailable, but he knew better now. Beneath the banter was a factory of strung wires and caught gears, tension of the kind he would never allow out next to the bonfire. That was why he was sitting in Noah’s passenger seat: not boredom or loneliness, but because Noah could be trusted with something true.  
  
There wasn’t a hell of a lot for Noah to be proud of, but he thought that maybe he could be proud of that.  
  
“She’s missing, then?”  
  
“Missing implies that her whereabouts are unknown. I know -” Whelk said, twirling the whiskey bottle in his hand so that what was left caught the light “- exactly where she is. She’s a stupid cunt,” he added, after what Noah supposed was a moment of reflection.  
  
Noah lit two cigarettes and handed one over. Whelk took it absentmindedly, his attention elsewhere. Noah knew what Whelk was like when he was drunk at parties, he got boorish and dull. He talked about social capital, promised rounds, and behaved like someone who’d had half their personality removed via power sander.  
  
This boy was more like the one Noah recognized from when they were alone, but not quite. His anger was different, a filament instead of a hammer. Something that held heat and light inside of itself, instead of just a promise that could be wielded as needed.  
  
“She’ll be sorry tomorrow,” Whelk said, his voice sharp as though Noah had said something to the contrary. “When she wakes up and sees what stray dog she’s lain down with. Girls are like that, though.”  
  
Noah made a noncommittal noise in reply and Whelk finally focused on him, instead of just staring past his shoulder. Noah thought of the last, unlistened-to song on the album Whelk had turned off - _contusion is hungry, they eat their young_.  
  
“You do know that about them, don’t you, Czerny? _Noah_? Or would you?” Whelk dropped his unsmoked cigarette into a stray Coke bottle.  
  
_Oh_ , Noah thought.  
  
He had thought of kissing Whelk before. It wasn’t like that, exactly; he hadn’t had any kind of shocking moment of self-knowledge, he didn’t have a secret he carried around in his heart.. It was just that there was a space for another person near him - just the vague suggestion of form, a human-shaped absence. Occasionally someone - a boy, or a girl, it didn’t seemed to matter - would wander through that space, and Noah would watch as it fit its shape to theirs, and Noah would want them, at least for a little while.  
  
It didn’t hurt, the wanting. It felt like the way his hands felt after driving for hours, the way they curved to fit the wheel even when the car was parked and locked behind him.  
  
Whelk was watching him, that filament burning up some of his familiarity, and Noah thought that maybe the hurting came with _being_ wanted. No magnet starts to turn unless there’s a twin nearby - he knew that, at least.  
  
Possibility sat heavy in Noah’s stomach. He crushed his cigarette out against the dashboard. Whelk raised his eyebrows - _well?_ \- so Noah leaned in and kissed him.  
  
He could never tell, later on, whether it had been a brave thing to do. He had never known what to do with things that hurt.  
  
Whelk grabbed him hard by the back of his neck, and by - the whiskey bottle bouncing off Noah’s knee and onto the floor - by his arm. For one hysterical moment Noah was reminded of his mom grabbing him by the shoulder and taking him inside to be scolded, but Whelk was kissing him, the momentum having shifted entirely between the two of them. They weren't making out - it was just the one kiss, Whelk holding him in place. The places they touched were liable to bruise, and Noah didn’t want to move.  
  
He hadn’t known how these things happened. He still didn’t know.  
  
With no music to mark the time, Noah didn’t know how long they’d been kissing when Whelk finally let go of him, both hands dropping off and tracing the space around him instead, both of them sitting back abruptly.  
  
“Jesus,” Whelk said. “Don’t do that where people can see.”  
  
He said it like kissing was something they’d done before, like it was a regular occurrence and his only objection was the setting.  
  
“Sorry,” Noah said, but he wasn’t. He glanced down surreptitiously; Whelk’s dick was hard, the line of it only just visible in the uneasy light, and Noah swallowed against however that made him feel. Simple pleasure, or something like pride. He couldn’t be sure.  
  
“Just remember it.”  
  
The party was still going on. From his place in the maze of cars Noah couldn’t see anyone, but he could still hear them, the lazy beat of the music - _boring, boring_ \- too slow to capture anything about the night.  
  
Whelk reached down to rescue the abandoned bottle of whiskey. He had to lean on Noah’s knee to do it, and Noah thought, _shit, okay_ , because his own dick was hard, and he hadn’t even noticed, not once. When Whelk sat up, Noah twitched his leg against the sudden loss of weight.  
  
“I guess you’re going back out there,” Noah said, because it was true.  
  
“Probably,” Whelk said. He swished the whiskey in the bottle again and tucked it under one arm. The filament had gone out, or burned out, but when Noah looked at him he still thought _I want you_. It still hurt a little, pulling at the center of his chest like a leash, and he still didn’t know what to do with it. It was a new thing. “I’ll see you later, though. This place is lame, I won’t be staying for long.”  
  
It wasn’t a long drive back to campus, and Noah mapped it out: his own music, empty roads, Whelk stumbling in trailing the smell of smoke and alcohol and his stupid sandalwood aftershave. It would be good, maybe.  
  
Noah nodded. “See you there.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

Whelk had several hangover cures. The best of these was a Saturday morning feast consisting of the kind of chain restaurant breakfast food he never agreed to otherwise; the worst involved Noah being barred from their room for at least twelve hours.

Ley line-hunting was a new one. Noah disagreed with the idea on principle - 10 am was never his favourite time to put on hiking boots, even when he _wasn’t_ nursing what inevitably resulted from most of a bottle of whiskey - but he was willing to put his principles aside as necessary.

So far, he wasn’t regretting that decision. If Whelk had been in one of his more determined moods he might have felt differently, but so far he seemed content to let Noah sprawl out in the grass they’d crushed down driving into the field. It was a warm day, proper Indian summer weather, but the ground was still cool and damp, and Noah experimentally wiggled his fingertips into the topsoil. Nothing.

Sometimes he wondered what they were actually searching for, and what it would look like if they found it. Every time he tried to imagine the moment of discovery, all he ever managed was something that looked like special effects from a bad 80s kid’s movie. Sparkles, a suspiciously obvious glow, maybe even a rainbow. The whole works.

Whelk was digging for something in the back seat of his stupid car, and Noah watched him with the kind of boneless lassitude that came with a late night followed by an early morning.

_I kissed you_ , he thought, trying to make the words fit the shape of his memory. It was like he couldn’t quite hold it together - the entire sequence played out incoherently every time he tried. _The whiskey bottle hit his leg, he turned off his music, Whelk handed him a cup of shitty beer, Whelk grabbed his arm, Whelk swung into Noah’s car, Whelk crawled in through the passenger window._

“Are you going to help me with this, or are you just going to spend the entire day down there?”

Noah scrubbed the heel of his hand against his eyes and propped himself up. Whelk was unfolding a tripod, which never forbode anything interesting, so he just collapsed back against the ground. “Probably the second option.”

Whelk made an unforgiving sort of noise, and Noah pressed his palm against his mouth so he could smile against it. _I kissed you_. It hung there in his thoughts, looking hazy and strange and improbable. Totally unlikely. Almost definitely true.

He wasn’t an idiot, no matter how much Whelk enjoyed insinuating otherwise.

It was more than likely that Whelk had managed to track down Melissa afterwards. She was pretty, the kind of girl that Noah’s grandmother had called _vivacious_ in a slightly suspicious voice, and, for all of Whelk’s big talk, Noah knew that he hated finding new girlfriends. Too much work.

Whelk had probably found her and then taken her back to his own car, with its spacious back seat and the blanket he kept folded in the trunk.

Noah didn’t mind, or - that wasn’t even it. He didn’t have any feelings about her at all, just a dusty space in his brain where he was pretty sure there ought to be some kind of moral quandary. That, or jealousy, or _something_ , he knew there ought to be _something_ , but instead: dust. Maybe it was him, maybe he was just kind of fucked up; maybe it was Melissa, maybe it was Whelk. It was hard to tell - he’d never been in this situation before.

He squinted over at Whelk, who was screwing something into the tripod - a total station, maybe, Noah never could keep all that shit straight. In all likelihood it had never been used before, and would never be used again, one more expensive piece of equipment doomed to join the pile of forgotten and unloved technology slowly accumulating around Noah’s bed.

There was a smear of sunscreen on Whelk’s forehead, and Noah’s fingertips twitched with the urge to rub it in for him. He’d say something, but Whelk was a professional at shooting the messenger, and it wasn’t worth the inevitable full-day sulk. Best to pretend it wasn’t even there.

“If I find the damn thing today, I’m not going to give you any credit,” Whelk said. He stood up straight and stretched, one melodramatic hand at the small of his back. “Shit. I’m doing the heavy lifting, and you’re just doing your best impression of a worm.”

“It’ll be like my grade five Christmas pageant all over again,” Noah said seriously. “Uncredited - Noah Czerny as a hay bale.”

“Hay bales are useful, aren’t they? I mean, they have… a use. I think cows eat them. You’re just an earthworm.”

Whelk turned away from him, fiddling with the controls on the total station.

_I don’t mind that you have a girlfriend_ , Noah thought, watching the back of Whelk’s head. He had a cowlick - it was hidden beneath his clever haircut, but Noah still knew it was there. _You can still kiss me_. He could say it, maybe, but Whelk probably already knew; maybe there was something about Noah’s face that said he didn’t care about girlfriends, something about the set of his shoulders that showed what he’d let happen.

He’d half-expected the wanting to disappear once he got back to their room. He’d expected it to be gone by the time he fell asleep, or woke up.

_I still want you_ , he told Whelk’s back, and then his profile as he turned.

Waking up to it had been a revelation. Not the big kind in last chapters. Just something dawning, cold and confused, a shape forming behind Noah’s half-hearted hangover and the sound of Whelk shoving equipment into a bag. Lumpen pillow, clattering metal, Whelk gagging a little on Tylenol, and Noah wanting him.

Despite the business with the ley lines, Noah still wasn’t sure if he actually believed in anything, but he had complete faith in the idea that Whelk wanted him in return. There wasn’t much in the way of proof, and it wasn’t even that Noah was desperate for it to be true, but still; he remembered the way Whelk’s attention had dragged across him the night before, the way it had lit up what had previously just been something inert and hypothetical.

It didn’t seem possible that he could want like this, sudden and real, without it being in answer to a question.

Noah had never made a decision to be something that Whelk could trust to be there when he expected him to be, but there it was, regardless of how Noah felt when he heard that confidence and offhand affection in Whelk’s voice, the jokes he made, the way he would turn to Noah in a crowded room with his eyebrows already up, _do you see what I’m seeing here?_ This didn’t feel any different, except that Noah couldn’t even bother to resist the pull of inevitability this time.

“Czerny,” Whelk said, irritated, and Noah snapped his head up fast enough to make the back of it ache. Whelk was standing over him now, briefly unfamiliar, and Noah touched his fingertips to his ankle to say hello.

“We might have found this thing already if you were psychic,” Noah said, his own sleepy voice sounding vaguely unreal. He could hear all the other words laid out over top of it: _are we going to talk about this? Are you -_

Whelk scoffed. “Psychic. I actually need you for something, get your ass over here.”

Getting up was a slow and painful affair, but Noah saw the problem quickly: the tripod was set up at an unhappy angle, and looked likely to topple over at any moment. He had a momentary urge to pat it, like you would a mournful-looking pet, but instead he just tightened the stabilizing screw.

“Your parents should know that you can’t work a tripod. Obviously even an Aglionby education is getting you nowhere,” he said, ignoring Whelk’s snort of laughter behind him.

“I can take over from here, but don’t go back to your sunbathing.”

Noah looked pointedly over at the shaded patch of grass where he’d been stretched out - he could see the imprint of his body, the shape of his thighs - then took a step back to let Whelk at the equipment.

It was such a small thing, to touch the small of Whelk’s back. It wasn’t even skin, just cotton; less than touching his ankle, his face, his hand - Noah didn’t even realize he was doing it until Whelk stiffened, the ridge of his spine becoming something tense and dangerous under his fingertips. Snake.

He dropped his hand quickly, but Whelk still turned and caught him by the wrist. Slow unease bloomed at the back of his throat, the same growing awareness of _ah, I’m fucked_ that he remembered from his one ill-advised attempt at shoplifting. He pulled weakly at Whelk’s grip, like a non-verbal admission of guilt.

“You touched me.”

“I touch you all the time.” Noah stared at Whelk’s hand. There was dirt under his nails for some reason - usually he was touchingly anal about the condition of his nails. _Your manicure_ , Noah had once called it, and Whelk had thrown a clock at him.

Whelk paused (long enough for Noah to start crafting excuses, rebuttals - _there was a fly, I kissed you, you want me, your shirt was all… fucked up, just fucked_ ) and then tightened his grip. Noah watched as Whelk pulled his hand closer, twisting it until he could fit the flat of Noah’s palm against his thigh. The fabric was warm, and Noah dragged his thumb over it, dazed and uncomprehending.

“Not like this,” Whelk said. He didn’t let go, as if he thought Noah might bolt if he did.

Noah shuffled a step closer. Maybe he would bolt - he couldn’t tell. He didn’t know if he wanted Whelk to let go or not, if he wanted the chance to move his hand or to pull it away. He tried thinking it again: _I want you_. It felt the same as it had ten minutes earlier, two hours, twelve. Like something real. Something that demanded action.

He stretched his fingers out, feeling hypnotized. Whelk was hard now - that much was obvious, even with Noah’s fingertips an inch away. It was almost more of a surprise than anything else, that Whelk was - that Noah could -

“We’re both teenagers,” Whelk said. It was like an answer, and Noah looked up, startled. He hadn’t expected him to say anything. “This is okay, we’re just teenagers.”

Noah nodded, unsure of what the right answer was. Whelk’s expression was intent and troubled, not completely different from the one he’d been wearing the night before, but - jesus, they were just standing there. This felt different, somehow. Maybe Whelk was trying to reassure himself.

“I’d let you kiss me,” he finally said, looking back down at his hand, his wrist. Whelk was silent, and Noah flexed his hand helplessly. “I could touch you.”

Whelk let go and took a step backwards. With his wrist finally free, Noah staggered, then managed to stay upright. He didn’t look up, and after a long pause he watched Whelk’s feet retreat in the direction of the car.

Even though it had just happened, Noah couldn’t get a handle on this any more than he had been able to keep track of the night before. Maybe that’s how things like this were for most people, just a blur of fraught and uncertain actions and the potential to have done something different. The car door slammed behind him, and Noah’s shoulders twitched reflexively.

The car window whined open.

“Grab the tripod,” Whelk said. “If he hurry, we can get to that weird cliff and back again before tonight. I know we checked it out last spring, but it has to be better than this place.”

“Sure,” Noah said. He touched his own thigh, wondering, then went to collect their equipment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kind comments and kudos! I'm hoping to keep updating this on semi-regular basis, so long as work doesn't get in the way. Whelk remains a pointless snail, but I'm really happy for the chance to write about this tiny idiot punk child. As always, feedback of any kind is accepted gratefully and rolled all over forever.


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